


Maid to Dress Up: Side Stories

by LexiTheDoubleedge



Series: Taylor's Dress-Up Spin-offs [3]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F, Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-20 04:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19985779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexiTheDoubleedge/pseuds/LexiTheDoubleedge
Summary: Alternate perspectives and stories of past events in the Maid to Dress Up setting.





	1. Won't Do Brains

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Taylor's Dress-Up Adventures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548336) by [kamenhero25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamenhero25/pseuds/kamenhero25). 
  * Inspired by [Maid to Serve](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428956) by [WestOrEast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WestOrEast/pseuds/WestOrEast). 



> I put an M rating on this because I don't have any -plans- to have any explicit content here, but it probably won't make sense unless you're familiar with at least one story that does have it.
> 
> Unless otherwise noted, each chapter is basically self-contained, and chapters will not necessarily be in chronological order.

I cursed the curfew as I noticed the figure coming up behind me. When people weren’t allowed out on the streets after dark, it made those few who did venture out that much more visible. Not what I'd wanted, not when I was trying to avoid this exact conversation.

It was even more problematic when I walked at maybe three or four miles an hour, limited to following the paths the roads and alleys allowed me, when my sister could fly at fifty miles an hour.

Maybe I should have hid, instead of trying to make some distance? Of course, that could have gone bad almost as easily. But either way it was too late now.

I heard Vicky touch down on the road behind me, and kept walking. Maybe if I didn't respond she'd leave. But when I heard her footsteps behind me I knew I wasn't going to be that lucky.

"Are you okay, Amy?" she called. "Everyone's worried about you."

I stopped and turned around. "Really?" I asked. "After what I did?"

Vicky blinked. "Huh? Of course we'd be worried. Dad told us about you healing him, but then you just up and disappeared. I'm just glad I found you before anything else happened."

"Oh, sure, I healed him now. But isn't everyone actually mad that I didn't do it sooner?" I asked.

Because I could have. Bonesaw had been right after all. I could have healed dad at any time, I just didn't want to. I hadn't been willing to take the risk of working with brains, until she forced it on me. There had been some tension between mom and I over it before, but she'd accepted that it wasn't worth the risk, especially when the medication seemed to be helping.

But since dad was injured by Leviathan, Vicky had been one of my only allies on the issue. I'd shared my fears with her, and she'd supported me, but I couldn't help suspect that deep down she'd been just as angry as anyone else that I wouldn't give her her dad back.

"I know how hard that must have been for you," Vicky replied. "Just come home and it'll be fine, okay?" And then she reached out for me.

I recoiled. "Don't touch me!" I screeched. "Just... just leave me alone."

Vicky held her hands up. "Okay, Amy. I won't touch you."

Good.

I turned and started walking away. There had to be someplace I could go where I wouldn't hurt anyone.

Then I paused. This was Vicky. It wouldn't be that easy.

I looked back and sure enough there was a very familiar pair of legs floating in the air above and behind me.

"Vicky, when I say 'leave me alone', you're supposed to -leave-."

"Nope," she replied. "Not allowed to do that."

"What?"

"See, I figure that as your girlfriend I can't give up on you. And as your friend I need to help you when you're hurting."

If only it were that easy.

"And as your sister I have to tell your friends embarassing stories about you."

I whirled around and saw that Vicky had her phone out. Oh hell. "You're calling Taylor, aren't you."

"I'm calling Taylor," she said with a nod. "Now, I figure we can wait here for her or I can keep following you around and sending her updates until she catches up."

And she'd do it too. I sighed and sat down to wait for the inevitable.

***

When Taylor arrived I saw that her skin was almost completely covered. She was wearing long pants, a long sleeved shirt, and - the most obviously out of place in the current weather - gloves. Part of me cringed, but most of me knew she was just being smart. She shouldn't trust me.

And then she sat down next to me and put her arm around my shoulders.

I realized that Vicky must have told her what I'd said about not touching me. And she'd found a way to hug me anyway. That was so like her.

But she was too close. I could just reach up and touch her face at any time. I should pull away, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Things hadn't been as easy between us since the bank, but I still loved her. Still felt safer with her holding me like this.

"So," she said. "What happened?"

"Vicky didn't tell you?"

"Just that you were being an idiot and ran off."

I snorted. "There's not much to say. Bonesaw came to the house. She hurt dad." I wasn't going to provide any more details on exactly what she'd done. They'd sleep better. "I healed him. Of everything. The end."

Taylor, being the other person who I'd confided in, did not miss the nuance in that 'everything'. "That must have been hard for you," she said, nearly echoing my sister's words earlier.

"No." They didn't get it. "It was easy."

I felt Taylor's arm squeeze a bit tighter around me, and realized that I was shaking.

"I didn't just fix his injuries. I restored everything, all the things he'd forgotten how to do. Fixing the depression was almost an afterthought. Do you know the kind of -other- things I could do to someone's head, if the whim were to take me??" I shook my head. "I don't trust myself with that kind of power."

"Why don't you trust yourself?" Taylor asked.

I looked at her in disbelief. "You're the one who found it out for me."

A while after the bank, I'd asked Taylor to find out what Tattletale had been getting ready to threaten me with.

I'd been regretting it ever since.

"Marquis," Taylor replied quietly. "You think you're like him."

"Oh, sure," Vicky interjected in her rarely-heard sarcastic voice. "Because what you do with your life is genetic. By the way, Taylor, how are you doing, getting ready to work in an office job at the docks? Because let me tell you, my law studies are going -great-."

Of course those things weren't even remotely true. "But you can't say I'm not becoming like him though. I've even got my rules, a code just like he had."

Taylor stared at me for a moment, before reaching over with her other hand and flicking me in the forehead. Hard.

"Ow!" I glared at her. "What the hell was that for?"

"Because that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say. In fact, it may be the single stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say. It even tops that one time that Sparky insisted he could put out a bunsen burner using only his nose."

Okay, now I just felt insulted.

"I told you my mom was an English professor, right?" Taylor said, her tone lightening a bit. "She read all kinds of things to me, or we'd read together when I was older. Things like the story of King Arthur, and other tales of chivalry. Of course, I learned some of the real history behind them too, and the knights don't always come out looking so good. But codes of honor have been part of our idea of what a -hero- is for centuries."

"But Marquis wasn't any kind of hero," I retorted.

"Indeed not. And to explain to us how similar you are to him, you call out one of his only redeeming features? Nope, sorry. You're going to have to try harder if you want us to believe you're gearing up to be some kind of evil queen. Maybe by doing something more evil than stealing Vicky's pudding."

"Amy? That was you?" Vicky said in a mock-hurt tone.

"No, I stole your pudding," Taylor replied. "But the point stands."

Dammit, I wasn't going to let them make me laugh. "But Bonesaw wanted me to join the _Nine_. Doesn't that say something about me?"

"Yeah, dad told me about that," Vicky noted. "She wanted you for your power, and she was trying to break your mind to get it. And she -failed-. Taylor, poke Amy a few times for emphasis while I say this next part."

I looked nervously over at Taylor, but she didn't look like she was getting ready to follow through on Vicky's order.

"Bonesaw hurt you. She hurt dad. She put you in a position where you had to break one of your rules. But she didn't break -you-. She didn't turn you into someone like her, who doesn't care about people being hurt, who enjoys hurting people. You're -better than her-."

But I had stopped caring, hadn't I?

Or at least... it'd gotten harder to care. It'd been getting worse for a long time.

But then Taylor had been there. I hadn't felt like I had anything to prove to her. I'd been able to tell her all the things I didn't think I could even tell my own sister.

And...

And...

And she'd held me, and told me it was all right. And somehow, I'd managed to believe her.

And it'd gotten better. I'd been able to hear people thank me for curing them or their loved ones, and smile back at them, and mean it. To be happy with Taylor, and then with Taylor and Vicky, and see my own happiness reflected back at me... it'd all meant something to me again.

It couldn't really be that simple, could it?

"But I still used my power on someone's brain. Broke my rules," I sniffled.

"Feel like doing it again for kicks?" Taylor asked.

"No! I- I can't!"

"And that's why we both said it must have been hard, why we aren't worried by you... because we know how much it really matters to you."

Taylor...

I pulled free of her arm, but only so I could pull her into a proper hug as I started crying.

A bit later, I heard Vicky's voice, closer than she had been. "Amy?" she asked. I looked up, and even though she didn't say anything more, it was obvious what she wanted.

I nodded, and she unhesitatingly came over and embraced both of us.

As the three of us settled down, my cheek was touching Taylor's, and one of Vicky's arms was pressed against mine.

It'd been obvious from the beginning that Taylor was enthralled by Vicky, and that hadn't really changed. Not even Vicky had realized how much she felt the same way about Taylor until after my own relationship with her had begun, but it was obvious now. And even though I knew they both loved me too, sometimes I wished they'd look at me the way they looked at each other. And with my power, I could -make- them look at me that way.

But I didn't.

It was easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I started writing this, I realized it was a bit of a shaggy dog story, except reversed. (Sleek dog story?)
> 
> Because I just couldn't see this Amy going down the kind of path that canon Amy did no matter -what- happens in this conversation. She's got better relationships with her parents (even if there's been some strain since Leviathan), the things canon Amy wasn't willing to tell Vicky about she either has or they didn't happen, she's got additional love and support from Taylor, -Vicky already returns her feelings-...
> 
> So it became not about what Amy would or wouldn't do, but about convincing Amy of it.
> 
> Okay, Amy. I won't touch you. - Can't help imagining now what would have happened in canon if Vicky had respected Amy's personal space. "Don't touch people who said not to touch them" seems like it ought to be a no-brainer.
> 
> she'd held me, and told me it was all right - As seen in chapter 7 of Taylor's Dress-Up Adventures.
> 
> sometimes I wished they'd look at me the way they looked at each other - They -do-. It's just harder to see from the inside.


	2. Leaving, A Message

Hi, Sarah, it's me.

We're almost done with the packing now. Mark's going to rent a truck for everything we're taking with us in the morning, and then we'll be off.

Can you tell Vicky and Amy that we left all of their stuff where it was? And their codes are still in the security system. Maybe they can help you keep an eye on the place, or they can use the house if they need a place to stay.

...

Sarah?

...

Can you tell them...

...

Sorry. Can't ask you to do that. I've got to do it myself, I know that. But I...

I just can't. Not yet. Got to get away from Brockton for a while, figure some things out.

But we'll be back.

...

Okay, I've spent enough time talking to your machine. I'll call you again before we leave tomorrow, okay?

Good night, Sarah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After reading some of the interludes Carol was in, I've started thinking that a lot of the divergence in this story could be explained by Carol having gotten therapy prior to that last fight with Marquis. (Maybe even before their -first-.) A better relationship with Amy, Vicky being less tightly wound, accepting her limits enough to hire a housekeeper... those wouldn't cover everything, but they'd cover a lot.
> 
> This is not to say she's perfect, there are some definite hints of tension in DUA that carry over to MtDU, but things were still pretty good until Leviathan. And then Skitter getting outed made it all boil over.
> 
> Like canon Carol, MtDU Carol has realized she's made mistakes with her daughters. But with nothing placing either of her daughters 'out of reach', she has a chance at reconciliation... she just needs some time.


End file.
